


Summer Blackout

by Nutkin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Consensual Underage Sex, First Time, Happy Ending, M/M, Pre-Series, Sibling Incest, Teen Dean Winchester, Teen Sam Winchester, Teenagers, Underage Sex, Weecest, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:05:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nutkin/pseuds/Nutkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean is seventeen, they spend five months being normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Blackout

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Летнее затмение](https://archiveofourown.org/works/924384) by [Rassda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rassda/pseuds/Rassda)



> Much thanks to Valiant for the beta and endless encouragement!

Sometimes Dean feels like a superhero. That's how he explains it to Sammy, when he's sitting in sullen twelve-year-old angst, picking at the end of his shoelace. Everyone who fights evil has to have a different identity. No one gets to know about the cool stuff you do, except you. It keeps you safe, and it keeps everyone else safe, because they get to pretend life is really as normal and boring as they think it is. Superheroes are always lonely. It's not easy. But they're lucky, because they have each other. And Dad. Most superheroes don't get that. Sam shoots him a look that plainly says this metaphor skews a little too young for him, but whatever.

Dean's got four years and thirty pounds on Sam, and it's still what he tells himself when he's walking home from the late shift at 7-Eleven. Gotta keep up appearances.

 

*

 

Dean's seventeen that year, and they're living in a little town in Arkansas. 

Normally they only set up shop towards the beginning of a school year. They'll linger somewhere long enough for Dean to remember why he hates school, for Sam to think everything will be better and different, and then they're back on the road. 

This time is different; there was an accident on the last hunt. Nothing too major - no one got hurt, anyway, but it was a close call. A gun didn't go off when it should have. Sam, who shouldn't have been there anyway, didn't quite duck fast enough, and if Dad didn't still have those military reflexes, the Winchester family would probably be short one person. Those near-misses are just part of the hunting life, part of doing what they do, but it shook them all up. They were rolling into Buckner the next morning.

It's pretty much a one-horse town. There are two churches, both of them white clapboard; there's a privately-owned grocery store and a few beauty salons; an "old-fashioned" candy store where you can pay $5 for a caramel apple; a smattering of restaurants on the main drag, and basically nothing else. 

Most importantly, there's nothing creepy about the place. Everything seems a bit trapped in time, but there's no evil here. No foreboding buildings, no local lore of any kind. The most notable story in town is that Church of the Good Shepherd was once part of the congregation of Church of Nazareth, and had broken off in 1974. People are still scandalized.

 

*

 

Dad's drunk most of this year. Dean assumes Sam doesn't really get that, because to Dean's thinking, Sam's got the observational skills of a six-year-old. He deals with it the only way he knows how, which is to pretend it's not a big deal. Even if he thought to talk it over with Sam, he'd just shrug it off. Whatever. So Dad likes his beer. A lot of dads are like that.

It kind of terrifies him, though. Sometimes. Like when Dad heads out at six and claims he's going to be back in an hour, and doesn't stumble in until two. Dean always waits for him, laying awake in bed until he hears the thud and click of the door that tells him he and Sam are safe, Dad is safe, and everything is okay. And then there are times when Dad comes in too plastered to make it past the front door - things sound a little different then (slower movements, the door banging open and staying that way, as the wind whips in), and Dean will jump out of bed, feet slapping on the cold wooden floor, and deal with it.

Those nights, he can tell by the smell that it's not just beer anymore. Tequila, maybe. Vodka, probably. Dad's too drunk to move properly, and Dean has to hoist him up, take the brunt of his father's slouching weight, and stumble him over to the couch. 

It's not Dad's fault that his life sucks so bad. Dean knows the only reason they're shipwrecked in Bumfuck is because Dad wants them to have a little bit of normalcy. He wouldn't be drinking like this if he were out there hunting more, doing what he needs to do. More than anything, it's really Dean's fault; if he tried a little harder to be responsible, if he worked more at proving himself, Dad wouldn't have decided to settle down and do the domestic thing for awhile. Guilt gnaws at him on these nights, so Dean doesn't mind the drinking, or the fear, or the task of tugging his dad's boots off. He leaves a pan next to the couch for the inevitable pre-dawn puking, and heads back to bed.

 

*

 

If Dean were going to start feeling weird about shit in his life, his crush on Sam wouldn't really be the starting point. There are swamp monsters and vengeful ghosts vying for that distinction, so it seems easier to not care. He's not stupid about it, doesn't go around acting strange - it's just a thing. People jerk off to weird shit. He keeps the used-shirt-sniffing to a bare minimum and dispenses crappy girl advice. Wakes up early some days, because Sam likes to beat off in the morning. Breath hitching and voice cracking around little moans while Dean stares at the painted wall inches from his face.

Sam's pretty fucking unfathomable, when Dean gets right down to it. And maybe that's where the attraction lies. He knows Sam likes it in Buckner, and not just because their school system decided he was too smart for the seventh grade. He's just like that; he goes for everything that small towns consist of. Sam likes watching sitcom families who interact like robots; Sam likes watching episodes of _The Dick Van Dyke Show_ and pretending he knows what moms are like; Sam likes riding his bike over to his friends's houses on weekends and listening to crappy music. Sometimes, when Dean can't sleep, he tries to imagine what Sam must dream about. Trips to Disneyland? Baking apple pies? It's all inconceivable to Dean, who learned to roll with the punches a long time ago. He can't remember what it was like to feel innocent about the world, to assume that there was something better waiting on down the line. 

He really does love Sam, even though he tries to not think about that very much. Ever since he was mid-jerk in a faggy-but-it's-okay-because-everyone-thinks-like-that-sometimes fantasy and he landed on the idea of going down on Sam, it's been kind of weird to think of things in those big brotherly terms. Still. He wants to protect Sam, give him some kind of wisdom gathered from his own crappy experiences. The only kind of protection he knows of, though, is the kind where you know how to fuck shit up worse than it can fuck you up, so he offers Sam the same guidance he always got from Dad: buck up, man.

Sam's gotta grow out of it sooner or later. So will he.

 

*

 

Dean starts playing sports that year. He's always been good at that kind of stuff. Yeah, so Dad was never the sort of person to play ball with in the park on a sunny day, but Dean can catch a loaded semi-automatic in the rain at night with one hand, so the Buckner Bruins are more than happy to use him. Dean likes the rules, the simple equation of it all. He likes knowing what he's supposed to be doing and how to do it, and he's inevitably the first person on the field for after-school practice and the last one to leave.

For the first month or so they're in town, Dad won't let Sam walk home by himself after classes. Too dangerous, he says, even though the most dangerous thing in town is them, followed distantly by, say, cougars or bobcats or something. No amount of indignant huffing spares Sam from sitting in the bleachers from three til five, doing algebra homework and reading whatever Great American Novel he's picked up in the library. He's awkward and unsure of himself in that setting, where the athletic and the popular congregate, his hair hanging limply in his eyes as he hunches over in the stands.

Dean claps guys on the back and smiles at the girls who sit in the other bleachers (the cool bleachers, because these distinctions can be made), but he lives for the act of being up at bat. Holding the wood in his hands. A look at the pitcher, a look at the ground. One up at the tip. It's like any other hunt, really - any other mission. Just gotta know your weapon, gotta know your enemy and how to take it down. The sharp crack of the bat against the ball isn't quite as satisfying as bullets embedding in a reanimated body, or the hiss of flames on a salted corpse, but it's something. Squeaky clean isn't him - never could be - but going through the motions is worth it for that release.

Sometimes, when Dean senses that it's going to be a bad night for Dad, he'll walk Sammy over to the park after practice. Two blocks from school, in the opposite direction of their little house - it's a relatively big park, because the one thing Buckner doesn't lack is empty spaces. The vegetation in Arkansas is different than what Dean is used to; they spend a lot of time in the dry southwest, where everything is sparse and red. Arkansas is lush. Green. Lots of tall grass and scrubby bushes that cling to the ground. There's a baseball diamond at the park, though, and a fence to catch stray balls, so he'll throw his bag of gear to the side and drag Sam to the center of it.

"C'mon, Sammy!" he yells when Sam woefully asks to be left alone with his book. "Y'don't want me to think you're a _girl_ , do ya?"

The funny thing is, Sam's not half bad. He's unpolished and very awkward, but he's got the same reflexes and instincts that make Dean a good player. He's coltish, riding out another growth spurt, and even Dean can tell he's going to be one tall motherfucker when he's older. He has a nasty habit of banging into doorways and dropping things now, but he can still catch a curve ball, which is pretty cool. He even gets into it sometimes, with a sort of quiet determination - like if he's going to be forced to do a stupid task, he's going to do it really well. If he actually connects the bat and ball, Dean makes him run around the bases, inevitably dropping his mitt and chasing after him because, "Dude, that's _so_ not fast enough!"

They stay in the park until dusk sets in and it's too dark to see the stitches on the ball. Their skin looks purpley-grey, Dean's white uniform (tight in the leg, looser up top, with a little blue belt and number 8 stitched on the front) lit up eerily. Dean shares his Gatorade with Sam those days, and they kick rocks on their way home, passing each other bottles of neon pink or green and laughing over whatever screw-up Sam made. 

 

*

 

Dean's first real, honest-to-goodness girlfriend is a cheerleader. Of course. Dean doesn't really have much reason or opportunity to talk to girls in school. He flirts a bit, yeah, and done some hooking up at parties, but class projects are always done with other guys. His friends are all guys, and really, socializing with girls isn't something he's used to, having been home-schooled in the back of Dad's car for years. The cheerleaders pile into the bus for away-games, though, just like they're on the team. They flop into the bench seats, turn around and perch on their knees, laughing and talking and swinging their feet in those little white tennis shoes. They're kind of inescapable, and they're the first girls Dean gets around to chatting with normally.

Jamie Naker has brown hair and big blue eyes. More of those perfect, just-a-little-more-than-a-handful tits. Amazing legs, toned from being on the track team since the sixth grade, and this way of talking that makes everything sound reverentially important. She seems excited about whatever the subject is ("I love my shampoo!" "I can't wait for college!"), and she's really, really pretty.

Dean spends the whole ride to the game in Lowerdale seated next to her, oblivious to the loud conversations and thrown items around them. He's only got ears for her enthusiastic retelling of her mom's wedding last month, for her laughing stories about the places in her house her cat gets stuck, for her warm, sweet flirting. Her skirt - blue and white - hits just a little bit above her kneecap, and he stares for fifteen of the forty minutes at that expanse of thigh. A little golden from sun, downy in a subtle sort of way, because girls like Jamie Naker in Buckner, Arkansas don't shave their legs at sixteen. Dean's never really had an appreciation for something as arbitrary as legs before, but there's something really sexy about this girl's, something that makes the back of his neck prickle in an agreeable way.

Jamie carries the conversation for the whole ride, tilting her head this way and that, leaning close enough that Dean can feel her shoulder rub against his bicep when she shrugs. They bond over a mutual dislike of school musicals ("Like we need to see another production of _Fiddler on the Roof!_ Can't they find something interesting? I've been reading this one for English class - " "Yeah, totally."), and she doesn't seem to notice his staring, because she agrees (laughing breathlessly, smiling blinding Crest white) to ditch the team and the other cheerleaders and go out with him after the game.

"After I win the game," is what Dean actually says, raising one eyebrow a little more than the other and smiling at her so widely dimples form in his cheeks. She rolls her eyes and laughs, but the Bruins do win, and Jamie spends the evening sitting with him in a booth at Mario's Pizzeria, giggling over his stories about the other high schools he's attended.

"God, Dean!" she says, picking pepperoni off the slice in front of her and licking the orange grease off her thumb. "You're so funny! Nothing like that ever happens here. I wish I got to travel as much as you!"

They date for weeks - about a month and a half, actually. It's weird, once the shine wears off. The very act of being in a relationship with someone comes haltingly to Dean. He doesn't like feeling like he has a counterpart, especially since they barely know each other. Jamie's in love, she tells him, but he can't stand her friends and that weird feeling in his stomach when she kisses him in public. 

The only time he's really enjoying it is when they're parked in the back seat of the Impala, and he's sucking on her tongue. She lets him get his hand up under her sweater, but pins her knees together sweetly when he tries to get between them. Really, he's not sure he minds - in the cramped back seat, with the taste of someone else's spit on his mouth, the only thing he can think about is Sam. He hates her for not making that change.

They break up in May, when everyone else is excited about prom. 

 

*

 

Dean's daily chore schedule is more like that of a housewife than a teenage boy. He washes the dishes, he vacuums, he takes out the garbage, he does laundry. He swings by Select Mart a couple of times a week, because no matter how many frozen dinners and boxes of Kraft Mac 'n Cheese he buys, they manage to burn through them. Sam's going this popsicle phase, too - the Dole kind that are mostly juice, and aren't that sweet. Dean's teeth don't like the cold, and he can't ever finish them before they start to melt - but he's more than willing to encourage Sam's desire to suck on stuff, and buys them two boxes at a time. The pastel-stained sticks wind up all over the house, a veritable forest wasted on shitty jokes. (When is it time to go to the dentist? Why do cows wear bells?)

Maybe if he had bigger balls, he'd call Dad on how fucking unfair it is to leave him being Mr. Mom. He'd go all Hulk - throw around his relatively new muscle and make a thing out of it. Play the guilt card (he keeps it up his sleeve like an ace, knowing he'll never actually cheat), bitch about missing his childhood. There are thoughts Dean doesn't let himself think, most of the time. Opinions he doesn't let himself have, about Dad and their lives. Maybe he could make himself go there, dump all that stuff out on the table. He might get something out of it - more alone time, less chores. But it would also mean more of Dad around, shitfaced and frustrating. And he's been doing this responsible thing for so long that it just comes naturally - something in his brain is right there to tell him that throwing bitchfits isn't responsible. Anyway, better to save that argument for when Sammy'll need it. 

Dad hides bottles around the house, and Dean wonders if he learned that trick from some Lifetime movie marathon or something. It's not exactly subtle, the bottle of hooch stuck between the couch cushions, waiting to bruise someone's ass. In time the others surface - some travel-sized ones behind the bookcase. Whiskey behind the lifetime supply of ramen in the top cupboard. It's depressing because Dean doesn't want to think about his father being someone with crutches in his life. Someone who has dependencies, who can't suck it up and cope with things. If Dad can't take his own, "Buck up, man," advice, where does that leave any of them?

Dean swipes one of the miniature bottles of vodka and downs it while trying to watch scrambled porn on channel 87.

 

*

 

Sam's birthday is observed perfunctorily - a cake from the supermarket. Balloons Dean picks up on the same trip for the cake, because blowing them up in rapid succession until they're totally lightheaded is something of a tradition. It's also something of a tradition that the person one year closer to death gets to pick what's for dinner. This usually means making the choice between Cracker Barrel or Applebee's, but since they're actually in a house this year, Sam smirks and says he wants hamburgers.

"Hamburgers," Dean repeats, leaning back in his chair until it's balancing on one leg. "You want fast food?"

The look on Sam's face just intensifies - one corner of his mouth tugged up tightly as he rolls his eyes. "No, stupid. I want you to _cook hamburgers_."

Dean thunks his chair back down on all its legs.

In the end, they make them together. Dean complains a lot, and Sam more or less runs the show - apparently his friend's mom makes them a lot, which is the origin of this brilliant idea. They make a royal mess - not aided by the brief, ill-conceived raw beef fight - and burn the first batch. Cooking comes about as naturally to Dean as quantum physics, but Sam's good at everything, so they kind of cancel each other out.

"Feel any older?" Dean asks, scrubbing the blackened remains of their failed attempt out of the iron skillet. He's wearing the stupid apron he always wears when doing dishes, and Sam's sitting on the counter, trying to eat a burnt chunk.

"Oh, loads," he says, bits of charcoal flecking his teeth. "My back's killing me, and golf suddenly sounds like fun."

"Smartass." Dean flicks both hands at him, sending trails of warm dishwater across Sam's t-shirt. Sam gives him a look of astonishment, and chucks the unhamburger at Dean's head.

When John comes in, Dean's still wearing his apron. They're both nearly soaked through, and Dean's got Sam flung over one shoulder, howling with laughter. He's shaking him upside down, and the contents of Sam's pockets have already fallen to the floor - quarters rolling off under the refrigerator and crumpled pieces of paper under Dean's feet.

"And what in the hell is going on here?" he asks, folding his arms and taking in the soapy, damp mess.

"Cooking," Sam says thickly, from somewhere around Dean's knees.

 

*

 

They wind up, eventually, with something pretty palatable. Dean finishes scrubbing out the skillet while Sam's changing out of his wet shirt, and they monitor the second batch with scientific intensity. They turn out a little pink in the center, but Sam - newly thirteen and unable to quit grinning - defensively says he likes them that way. And that's that.

 

*

 

Dean can feel himself start to slip when the school year ends. 

Summer hits with a strange, dry heat - the kind that makes your skin prickle with sweat before you even make it from the door to the car. The kind where the sidewalk melts the bottoms of your shoes. Wads of sticky, oozy chewing gum litter the streets where kids seem to have spit them without even caring - probably too sugar-parched to bear the sweet tang any longer. Dean gets that.

The school year winds down with a lot of assemblies to honor kids who didn't spend the year sitting in the back of the room, staring off into space. He wasn't there when photographs were taken for the yearbook - it's surprising his name makes it in there at all. He feels weird, scribbling his signature into the copies people put in front of him. Smiles in a sheepish way when he explains that he doesn't have one, so no, they can't sign his. He makes it home on the last day of school with a handful of loose-leaf papers on which people have written down phone numbers and addresses, promises to keep in touch. Jamie waves at him from across the already-dead front lawn outside the main building.

He doesn't really see anyone after that. Most of them supernova to points beyond for real summer vacations, and the rest are busy doing whatever they do. He's invited to a couple of parties in early June, but then the phone goes out - Dad forgot to pay the bill, and it takes two weeks before it's working again. When it's back up, people have stopped trying to stay in touch.

Sam starts living in the movie theater downtown. It only plays one movie per week, three showings a day, and by Friday he can quote whatever craptastic film it is, line for line. _Independence Day. Twister. Space Jam. Phenomenon_ , which they snicker at. Dean doesn't usually go, because it's easier to use the two hours for some private jerk-off time. But that's okay, because Sam actually has friends.

 

*

 

The job thing happens out of boredom, mostly, but it's also because they're pretty strapped for cash. Dad's winning combination of scamming, betting and turning the occasional wrench has kept them afloat, but it doesn't cover the miscellany of two teenage boys. Sam needs new sneakers, a wheel for his bike, a Green Day CD. Dean's requirements are a bit more basic - a couple of Hustlers and some Mountain Dew - but clerking at 7-Eleven keeps him square for that as well.

He gets the night shift. Works with a guy named Bill, who tunes the boombox to country stations and is usually stoned. He talks about hunting and his girlfriend, and he's exactly the kind of person Dean doesn't want to encounter in a dark forest during open season. Mostly, Dean just ignores the list of chores the manager leaves for the graveyard employees, and tries to entertain himself by reading magazines plucked from the rack.

 

*

 

The whole reason Dean tried out for baseball was because Dad told him to. Dad, as it happened, had been a bit of a sports hero when he was in school.

"You could use a hobby," he'd said. Raised a hand, then, at the inevitable retort. "One that doesn't involve cleanin' guns."

It had worked as a diversion, at least for a little while, but now Dean's itching for a fight. That's the only thing he really, honestly misses about the days on the road - the promise of combat. Something to get his heart rate up, make him feel alive. His days are spent sleeping, now, and eating Cheetoes while he watches Cheers re-runs. His nights are spent restocking the candy aisle in a florescent glow. His biggest accomplishment is the high score on the Space Invaders game over by the alcohol case. 

Yeah, he's spoiling for a fight. Sometimes, after his shift, he'll go walking around town with this on his mind. Looking for someone's ass to kick. He doesn't know who, really - maybe he'll see someone purse-snatching or something. Maybe someone will look at his boots and black t-shirt and think he's some kind of punk. He walks the four blocks that make up the rough part of town with dedication, meeting the gaze of everyone who passes by. Nothing ever happens.

He thinks a lot about technique, since he doesn't get any practice. Dreams up scenarios he might encounter - if there were two of 'em, if there were three. For a couple of weeks, he spends his work shift sitting behind the counter with one of those yellow office pads, drawing out diagrams in ballpoint pen. He's pretty sure he's figured out the best way to take on a group, although it's pretty gory. It would have to be one hell of a purse-snatching.

Sam finds the pad later, when he's cleaning his half of the room. "You should try reading Sun Tzu," he says. "If you're into tactical combat now."

"Shut up," Dean says.

 

*

 

Dad leaves for a hunt in early July. Dean finally musters the energy to beg shotgun, but no. Two weeks, Dad says, keys in hand. And I'll be calling. What he really means is, As long as it fucking takes, and don't think this is an opportunity for you to get away with stupid shit, because you never know when I'll be back. It's all in the tone.

Consequently, Dad's not around when the sky fucking falls and Sam's little girlfriend dumps him. 

He slumps into the house that night around eight, and Dean's all ready to bitch him into next week for not calling and letting him know he'd be out past dark - and then Dean sees his face. Notices that he's slouching himself into a kind of parenthesis, which he hasn't done much of since the last growth spurt. It doesn't take much wheedling to get the story out, such that it is: she wants to "hang out" with other people. It's pretty harsh.

Dean's hated the idea of this girl ever since Sam came home with barely-suppressed glee and told him about her in late-night whispers. She's nothing like Jamie, from what he can tell - just another plain, smart girl who was in Sam's advanced science class. They did homework together when school was in, and then - now - biked to the library together. Went and saw crappy movies together. Did the boring, normal things that Sam seemed to like so much. Hell, they probably shared milkshakes at the soda shop.

When Sam comes home with the weight of the world on his shoulders, staring down the rest of his life without this girl, Dean hates himself. He doesn't feel sympathy; he feels relief. He's been waiting for this ever since Sam confessed it all to him, so it's hard to be the brother he's supposed to be, all woeful shakes of the head and pats on the back.

"You need booze," is what he finally says, as Sam purses his lips and stares at his ratty sneakers.

"Huh?" Sam looks up through his mess of bangs, eyebrows pushed together. He seems very thirteen in that moment, unsure of himself and sad, and that should be all Dean needs to back off. Drop it, change the subject. But he's not good at that sort of thing. Backing down gracefully isn't his strong suit, so he wordlessly goes to the bookcase and pulls a bottle of Jack Daniels out from behind the well-worn copy of _Early Egyptian Talismen_.

Sam isn't a total lightweight, and Dean's pretty impressed by that. He's knocked back a few mouthfuls before he even starts to go pink-cheeked. Dean can taste his mouth on the bottle, maybe. He thinks he can, anyway, and that's enough to make his prick half-hard in his jeans.

"So how far'd you get with her?" he asks, stretched out on the floor. He's horny in that way where everything seems pleasurable. A slow burn that makes him want to rub his bare arms against the carpet. He's drunk enough to follow the impulse, enjoying the rough, worn fibers on his skin.

"Dean!" Sam looks embarrassed, or irritated or something.

"She dumped you, man," Dean says flatly, enjoying the knife-twist of that bluntness that shows in Sam's face. "You get to talk about how slutty she is. It's the rules."

Sam blushes, taking another swig of whiskey. It shakes in the bottle noisily, and Dean images Sam's backwashing into it like a third grader. It makes him want more. "She - she let me touch her," he says, a pathetic combination of brave and morose. "Just - god, just her boob!" he adds, at the look on Dean's face. "And just for, like, a minute."

"Pretty slutty for junior high," says Dean, and Sam doesn't look cheered by this. "I didn't get boob 'til I was a freshman."

Sam's expression is kind of priceless. "Really?"

Dean nods in a loose sort of way. "Valerie Walker." He gestures in front of his chest, hands cupped, and closes his eyes reverentially. Sam laughs and takes another gulp of the whiskey, sloshing it down his chin and then wiping it off hastily.

"You're so gross," he says, laying out on the floor near Dean. He stretches his legs out the other way, so they make an angle, his head somewhere near Dean's hip. His grip is wobbly when he hands the bottle back, over his shoulder. "Claire's not slutty. She's... she's nice."

"Uh-huh." Dean's in a real following-your-impulses mood, and notices a few seconds later that his hand is in Sam's hair, smoothing it off of his forehead. Tweaking the ends. "She sounds like a real winner."

"She _is_ ," Sam says fervently. He reaches up absently to touch Dean's hand, his thumb and middle finger forming a loose ring around his wrist. "She's smart. And she reads all these books. Poetry and stuff."

Dean digs his fingertips in towards Sam's scalp, kind of amazed at how much hair he's got. It's all soft and shiny, too. Sam's fingers rub against the inside of his wrist when he moves his hand, and that's nice. "So do you."

"Not the same," Sam sighs, and then he starts laughing. "Your hands are cold."

"Maybe your head is just too warm." Dean ruffles his hair up, and it stays that way, the natural whorls made far worse. 

"Maybe." Sam turns to look at him, then, taking the bottle back. "What if she was the girl, man? What if she was the girl I was supposed to be with, and I did something wrong?"

Dean doesn't move his hand, so he winds up touching Sam's temple when he says, "You really think that? Miss Blue Ribbon at the Junior High Science Fair is your freakin' soulmate?"

"No," says Sam, after a minute. 

Later, Dean won't be able to remember the details of this - it'll all be made indistinct by the glow of alcohol. He'll remember the brightness of the overhead light on Sam's face, and the pleasant numb feeling in his limbs, but that'll fade right into Sam's mouth, wet and vague. The shape of his bony fingers on Dean's skin will bleed right into him on his back, looking up at Dean plaintively.

Right now, though, it all seems crystal clear. Sam turns his face against Dean's stomach and looks at him thoughtfully. Dean's t-shirt rode up a bit when he flopped down on the carpet, so Sam's cheek is pressed against his skin, and he feels awash in warmth and want. His visions's a little blurry when he shifts - sits up and kind of makes a grab for the bottle of Jack, but Sam's not as sluggish with the liquor as he is, and moves a bit faster, hoisting himself up to a sitting position and holding it at arm's length the other way. His teeth glint in a stupid, drunken grin, and Dean reaches around him, this way and that, for it.

The one thing Dean will be able to really remember is that it's all just an excuse for him to get his hands on Sam.

They fall back onto the floor again with a thud, which is the bottle landing on its side. It glug-glugs its contents out all over the floor, but the carpet is the same root-beer brown as any other cheap place built in the mid-70s, so Dean doesn't reach for it. Just leans down and kisses Sam on the mouth, lips dry and tongue wet. And, against all odds, Sam just kisses him back, stifling a choking laugh against Dean's lower lip.

Mapping Sam out is a lengthy process, because there's so damn much of him. Dean takes his time; there's no need to rush. No one to tell him to hurry up. The whiskey's made time slow and thick, and in that instant, it doesn't feel like there's anyone else in the world. Sam arches under him, shivering and ticklish at every flutter of fingertips. Mouth falling open when Dean finds a good spot. 

He licks his way up Sam's legs - dusty with dirt from the yard, from biking everywhere. Slides his teeth against his knee, leaves red marks on his thigh. It's all nonsensical, touch and go. Dean doesn't know what he's doing, just that Sam's spread out in front of him, and that's a good thing. This is Sam, he thinks, mouth going sloppy against his hipbone, and it seems impossible.

Dean's hand is huge on Sam's prick, fingers tight around the shaft. He only considers it for a second; pausing to watch as Sam pants, flushed and wet-lipped, and then he's swallowing down the tip. The details of this kind of thing have always eluded him in fantasy form, but he sucks the sticky head into the hollow of his lips, and his mouth is so bitter from the booze that he can't even really be weirded out by the taste, the smell. 

"Oh-- Dean!" Sam half-shouts. Dean knows, weirdly, that Sam's actually saying his name in surprise - the way you'd yell it at someone wandering into rush-hour traffic. Not because it was what he was supposed to say. Not because he was trying to start some kind of porno dialogue. Dean likes that distinction.

Enough to bob down further, letting the hot skin of Sam's cock drag along his tongue. He thinks about those weird little tremors of lust he's been getting for months now, and the noises Sam makes when he's jerking off at dawn. He doesn't get around to anything else, though, because Sam's pushing himself up into Dean's mouth and blowing his wad. No warnings, no hair-pulling - just all of the sudden, Dean's spluttering around gobs of jizz, and Sam's sighing like everything in life just worked out.

 

*

 

They don't talk about it in the morning. Dean doesn't, anyway, and Sam seems to take that as a cue. 

He's already at the kitchen table when Dean wakes up. No lights on, no noises being made, just sitting there slumped over some book. The room is full of watery-grey light, which isn't really enough to read by. If Dean wanted to sound like a grandma, he'd bitch at Sam for ruining his eyes. Instead, he rifles through the cupboards and unearths an old bag of marshmallows, half-empty and held shut with a clothespin. Sam looks blue and pale in that lighting. And young. And pretty. Dean doesn't want to see that.

They don't say anything at first. The only sound comes from the hum of the refrigerator's motor clicking on, the clattering of the clock in the living room edging closer to nine, and the guttural roar of the coffee maker.

Dean starts talking randomly, pointlessly, just to fill up the silence and let Sam know he's not pissed. He talks about Bill. Talks about this woman who comes into work every night with one of those mechanical voice-box things, buying cigarettes, and the way she always hits on him. Sam looks at him dubiously, so Dean pushes his thumb against his throat and does an impression, which finally makes Sam bust out laughing. Dean joins in.

"You and Josh doin' something today?" he asks, sitting down at the table and gulping down coffee. Sam reaches over, pries the mug from his hands and sips at what's left. It's the only clean cup in the kitchen. "That stuff'll stunt your growth, you know."

Sam grins at him and lifts an awkward shoulder. "We might. _Homeward Bound II_ is at the uniplex."

Dean makes a face. "They sequeled that?"

"Yeah, I know. We could make fun of it?"

"And I could clean the toilet bowl with my tooth brush. No thanks. You crazy kids have fun."

Sam's silent, clutching the mug between his huge hands. "I could stay home."

Dean can still taste the grit of dirty, tanned skin, like it's embedded under his tongue. Like it's a flavor and not just an idea. "Nah," he says easily. Gets up to claim his toast from the jaws of the toaster. "Don't need you underfoot while I'm tryin' to vacuum."

 

*

 

Things are weird for a few days. Dean feels pulled a little too tight, like he's waiting for the cops to show up and drag him off, or something. He's waiting for the other shoe to drop, and is shocked when it doesn't. Sam's a little more clumsy than usual, his teeth seeming to always be on edge, but he's not mad. In fact - Dean finally figures it out - he's regarding Dean the same way Dean's regarding him. Waiting.

Once he gets that, Dean makes a point of punching Sam on the arm. Stealing his cans of soda. Calling him a retard. Doing the same stuff as always, with a brand new kind of gusto. Like always, Sam follows his lead, and then things kind of seem okay.

 

*

 

Dad's still gone when the first really miserable heatwave hits. There's no air conditioning in their house, of course, so the whole place seems to stagnate. The air's thick like pancake batter, and they spend about five minutes in the bedroom before declaring it unfit for human exposure.

Compared to that, the living room seems refreshing. More windows to throw open, and if they're lucky they can get a cross-breeze. It's better than the one square window in their bedroom, and even though Dean refuses to let Sam leave the door open, it's a couple of degrees cooler than the rest of the place. There's no pull-out bed in the couch - those fuckers are too heavy, too impractical - so they just pile blankets and pillows on the floor. Sam sprawls out with a pile of cheap comic books and glasses of ice water. Dean watches Nick-at-Nite with the volume turned off, trying to figure out episode plots without sound.

It's two in the morning when it happens again.

 

*

 

Sam and Dean are both stripped down to boxers, laying hap-hazardly in the tangle of sheets. They passed out some time earlier, the lulling heat pulling them in relatively early - but there's no way to really get comfortable, so the sleep is touch and go. The only thing coming through the windows seems to be more hot air, and Dean can hear cicadas somewhere outside, and the irregular buzzing of a mosquito or something on the other side of the screens. 

Too hot to sleep. Too hot to breathe. Dean wipes his face; clear pools of sweat have formed along the bridge of his nose. The TV's still on, casting purple-blue shadows across his chest. Must be Bewitched, or something else black and white. That strange, low thrum from the screen seeps into the other noises he can hear, and then Sam's breathing does, too. Stifled and rough, kind of like sad little sighs. It's the same way Dean's breathing.

"You awake?" he finally asks. 

Sam turns over slowly, like it's an effort. Rolls with the momentum until he's practically doing a face-plant into the pillow, one dark eye peering at Dean. "No."

"Liar."

Sam's hair is a mussed halo of cowlicks and curls, sweaty and plastered in a million directions. "W'dya want?" he manages, scrubbing a hand across his face. Dean likes him like this - he's not on edge at all, not tense. It's like things are actually normal again. Like it used to be, except now he doesn't have to imagine what Sam's cock tastes like. It's some kind of cosmic second chance, or something.

It's dark, but that funny glow from the screen makes it easy for Dean to see when he gets to his knees and climbs on top of Sam, all wet, panting heat. Sam gasps a little in surprise. Goes all still under Dean's hands, and then suddenly, decisively arches upwards.

Dean palms Sam's cock through his damp boxers. Drags his mouth down his collarbone, and he can taste sweat. It's different than before, because Sam's hot all over, sticky from baking under the sheets. There's no alcoholic tinge to it, either, and his motions seem more deliberate. He's got the mental capacity to appreciate just how smooth Sam's skin is under his hand, just how responsive his body is to being touched.

Sam goes hard for him in an instant, reacting abruptly to Dean's teeth and fingers even though he's still blinking hazy sleep from his eyes. Dean yanks Sam's cock out, tugging on it with the same quick motions he did last time.

"Dean," he groans, losing half the word in a huff of breath. "Are you - gonna - ?"

But then Dean _does_ , and Sam seems to collapse. Legs spreading wide and hips moving as Dean's lips pop over the drippy, leaking head. Dean can hear a distant car go past outside as he works his tongue against the underside. Slides down tentatively, lips stretching around the salty, flushed length. He's still got the basic idea, even without booze helping him along. He feels dirty on a primal sort of level, but giddy, too. Ridiculously hard and egged on by the raspy noises Sam's making. If he looks up, he can see the curve of Sam's neck. He's twisted so fitfully that the top of his head is basically flush against the floor, and the eerie light of the television catches on the angles of his body. A jut of collarbone, the dip of ribs, his pointy jaw sent in sharp relief. 

Dean's mouth is all suction and spit, and he digs his fingers into the sheets on either side of Sam's hips when he tastes precome. His lips are slippery enough that when Sam starts to thrust up at him, he can just pull back a little and let him, let Sam fuck his mouth in shallow little jerks.

He lets himself moan around Sam's prick, because it's the middle of the night and there's no one to hear, and in the space of a heartbeat, Sam's coming. Thick and hot, and Dean does his best to swallow, this time, but he mostly winds up sputtering it down his chin.

Sam's eyes are wide when Dean straightens up, like he can't really believe that just happened again. His gaze drags down to the bulge of Dean's shorts with unabashed interest, even as Dean wipes the sticky mess of come and spit off of his lips and shoves that hand down into his boxers to wrap around his aching cock. His hands hurt from fisting them in the sheets so hard, but he's too horny to wait, or to fuck around using the other one. He just looks over at Sam and beats off in quick, short movements, bound in the cotton of his shorts. Sam doesn't make any secret of the fact he's watching - rolls on his side, even, and just looks as he pants himself back to a normal heart rate.

Dean blows his load like that - fingers sore, eyes open, staring at Sam's flushed, curious face. 

"Go to sleep," he says afterwards, wiping his hand on the sheet between them.

 

*

 

Dad comes home with a busted shoulder that Dean stitches up in the bathroom. Some kind of malicious spirit. Dad fucked it up a lot worse, but not before it dug claws in deep. Dean's pretty good with a needle, though, and it'll heal cleanly. They're saved a hospital visit, and when Dean knots the final loop of the stitches, the thinks that Sam's going to be good at this part of things, some day.

Things click over somewhat normally. Dean never said anything about it, but Sam's smart enough to get that they aren't supposed to talk about it, or even think about it, when Dad's around. There's a time and a place, and Sam seems to understand that implicitly. Things are even more normal than they were after the first time - the three of them eat breakfast together and bicker about stupid things. Just like a normal family.

 

*

 

Dean's working his usual shift about a week later when someone comes in. It's about midnight, but he hasn't had a customer in an hour and a half. He doesn't look up from his doodlings. "Hey," he says. The person wanders around for a few minutes, and then comes up to the register. "That gonna do it for you?" He adds some shading to the stick figure he's drawn.

"This is a hold up," says Sam, dryly. He's holding his finger and thumb out, cocked like a gun, peering amusedly at Dean from under his bangs. A bag of Twizzlers is on the counter.

"Dude, what are you doing here?" 

"Bored," Sam says succinctly, leaning on the glass part of the counter, elbows on the ratty sign warning about underage alcohol sales. Dean watches him pick up one of the jewel-colored Bics. He turns it over in his hand, gaze trained on the liquid inside.

"Dad know you're here?"

Sam rolls his eyes up to Dean, with so much teenage languor that Dean kind of wants to punch him. It was a stupid question, though. "What do _you_ think?" 

"Yeah, well." Dean scratches his hand through his hair. "You better get your ass back there, in case he comes home."

"Yeah." Sam flicks the lighter open absently. "So where's the infamous Bill?"

"Give me that. You're gonna start a freakin' fire." Dean snatches the lighter out of his hand and drops it in the tray. "He called in baked. Apparently it's possible to get so fucked up you can't sit behind a counter."

Sam picks the lighter back up and glances at Dean. "So it's just you?" _And me_ hangs in the air, implied.

"Yeah. And the surveillance cameras make three."

Sam rolls his eyes. "So you're not gonna sell me beer? Bummer."

"Y'know, I have the right to refuse service to anyone," says Dean, taking the lighter back. "Don't go pissin' me off."

Sam smiles in a way that makes his dimples show up. "Can I get a Slurpee?"

Dean makes a big show of digging in his back pocket for his wallet. Waves a crumpled dollar bill at Sam, and then opens up the till and sticks it in - and another for the candy. "The blue kind's busted. And don't try the yellow, it's fucking disgusting."

"How disgusting?"

"Chocolate-banana disgusting."

"Huh." 

Dean's not really surprised when he turns around and Sam's turning the handle on the yellow vat. "You are such a little punk."

Sam smirks and tears the end of the paper cover off his straw. Takes aim and blows it off, so it shoots over the rack of jerky and lands in front of Dean. "I gotta learn these things for myself, man. How will I ever grow as a person if I don't?"

"Whatever. Enjoy."

The face Sam pulls when he takes a sip really improves Dean's mood. He dawdles his way back to the counter, and leans against it. The Slurpee cup's already got condensation on the outside of it, and it puddles wetly against the glass. 

"You waitin' for me to bag you up?" he asks. Sam scowls and plucks at the edge of the candy wrapper, like he's hesitating. 

"I found something," he finally says, reaching into his pocket. "I didn't - well - " he shoves a wad of newsprint across the counter.

It's obits. Three of them, and a news clipping to boot, detailing three inexplicable water-related deaths. All children, and that's what the article is about - redoubling efforts to educate on water safety. Dean skims them and glances up at Sam.

"Found 'em... what, in Dad's pocket?"

"At the library, Dean." Sam rolls his eyes, and he pretty much misses the impressed look that Dean can feel fleeting across his own face.

"Well, well, well. Sammy's first blood trail." He lifts up one of the obituaries and glances at another, and then grins easily. "Guess you're officially a woman now."

"I hate you," Sam says, stuffing the clippings back in his pocket.

"You gonna tell Dad?"

"Dad already knows I hate you, Dean."

"But he doesn't know some monster is snackin' on kids in the next state."

Sam purses his lips and looks down, suddenly awkward. "I don't wanna make a thing out of it." He looks sad in the unforgiving white light. Face shadowy and tilted down towards the lottery ticket display, shoulders hunched up defensively. And Dean gets it, because Dean always gets it. 

The first time he spotted a pattern like this, Dad took him out on the hunt. Just the two of them. He didn't get the killing blow or anything, but it was markedly different from the times before, when he and Sam were clearly tagging along. It was the real deal - Dean holding a shotgun in his hands and taking aim at the thing; Dean running so fast and so hard he thought his heart would explode right out of his chest; Dean lighting the match and saying, "Bye, fuckface," before torching the bones. It was stepping up. Afterwards, back at Pastor Jim's, Dad kept smacking him on the back and grinning - even plunked a beer down in front of him, which tasted disgusting and made him feel grown up. 

There's no two ways about how Dad's going to take this find of Sam's, and you don't need a four-point GPA to get that Sam doesn't want to go hunting. Sam's happy. He's happy living like this, losing himself in the crappy movies and sugar-free popsicles. Deluding himself into thinking he's normal.

"Well, I'm sorry, Sam, but you don't really got a choice here." Dean can hear his voice get a little rough, and it's weird, because the words coming out are pure Dad. "You're not gonna let a bunch of kids die because you don't want to admit you're a weirdo who notices fucked up patterns."

Sam stares him down for a few seconds, and then looks away, over at the cheap candy rack. "I know. I just - I don't want Dad to make a big deal out of it. I'm not an idiot, Dean. I know we're not gonna be here forever. But I don't want to go sooner than we have to, just 'cause Dad's - Dad's all excited over something stupid."

Dean doesn't say anything, and for a minute or two they just stay like that. He can smell the bleach he mopped the floor with earlier, can hear Linda Ronstadt pouring out the speakers of the boombox, and then - "Give 'em to me." He sticks his hand out across the counter. Jerks his fingers beckoningly. Impatiently.

Sam seems to move automatically, pressing them to Dean's palm. "What - ?"

It's buying him a little longer to be the baby, and it's not fair, really, to any of them. Sam's old enough to be hunting now, and he'd be an asset to the team - to the family - whenever they go back to their normal lives. It feels wrong to lie to Dad, but then, it seems worse to say no to Sam. Dean shoves the crumpled papers into the pocket of his black uniform pants. "You didn't find it. I did."

Sam watches him carefully, but his eyes light up in that way that makes Dean's chest ache. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Now take your vomit slushie and get the hell out of here."

 

*

 

Three days later. Sam's still got those damn Twizzlers, which have more or less dethroned popsicles as the reigning snack of choice. He keeps dangling one from the corner of his mouth as he plays Nintendo, so there's a smudge of red stain on that side now. It drives Dean crazy, because it looks like the kind of mark you get from kissing, and every time he sees Sam's lips he gets this weird little stomach-lurch of fear. Shortly followed by arousal.

"What're you watching?" Sam asks that night, collapsing next to him on the floor. They're leaning back against the couch, the video game controllers in a hap-hazard tangle in front of them. He'd wandered off to take a shower earlier, so his face and his chest have that scrubbed, pink look.

"Fuck all." Dean shifts to give Sam some room. He feels salty when he moves, like he's been sweating too much for too long; Sam's still damp when he reaches over and pulls the remote from Dean's fingers. He slouches kind of lazily against Dean's shoulder, his mop of wet hair a counterpoint to the burn of skin on skin. 

Dean knows Sam can't stand showers that aren't warm, which sort of defeats the purpose of cooling off under the water - but the tips of his hair somehow catch the coolness of the night air, and Dean shifts his head so he can brush his face against them. It's soft. Warmer towards his scalp, which is where Dean's nose brushes, but he can smell Head & Shoulders, Dial soap, and Sam, and it's so squeaky-clean that he can't quite pull back.

The channels flicker past on the screen. Sitcom, sitcom, Carmen Sandiego, the news. Sam absently turns his head so that fussy hair of his is pressing against Dean's neck, and strangely, suddenly, that's all the undoing Dean needs. It's not that surprising; he seems to constantly be half-hard these days, nettled to full-fledged horniness by the slightest provocation. And - yeah, it's around six, and the sun's not even totally down. Dad's in the next room, puttering around and making noise. Dean's eyes are fixed firmly on the TV screen - Sam has paused on the news - and his hand slides down to the front of Sam's shorts. 

They've done it twice now, and Sam doesn't even seem surprised. He doesn't turn, or make any noise - just shifts a little, rubbing his shoulder against Dean's chest. He's stiff in almost an instant; Dean can feel the heavy curve of his cock just under the fabric, tight and hard. Sam lets out a little sigh and pushes his hips up, his hand coming to rest between Dean's thighs.

The numbers for the current Dow Jones stuff flash by on the screen, and Dean gets his hand in there, under the band of his shorts - it's a tight fit, but his fingers are around Sam quickly, abruptly. Squeezing, since there's not a lot of room, and he drags his thumb back and forth across the slit. 

The only sign that Sam's even aware of this, at first, is the way his muscles tense up. He goes rigid against Dean's chest, and then his breathing tapers off into shallow, sweet gasps. Dean can't really see his face - just the general outline of it in the dying light, but he can tell that Sam's jaw is set pretty tightly. He leans in a little, breathing out warmly, and Sam shivers. It's just another second before he's leaning his head back, hooking over the curve of Dean's shoulder. Face turned in against Dean's throat a little bit. The drop of water are hot against Dean's skin, now, just another facet of the stifling heat - but Sam's moving his own hand back to cup Dean's prick through his jeans, and that suddenly seems okay.

Dean watches the green squares on the bottom of the screen go solid as Sam clenches down on the remote, jacking the volume of Peter Jennings' voice up so high it covers his sudden groan. Sam's hand is clumsy - deft with the fly, but halting and unsure when it fists around Dean's prick. Like he's not sure how to do it when it's someone else's. He touches inquisitively, thumb tracing the veins, brushing near the wet head. Fingertips pushing in, testing the texture, before he finally starts to pull.

"S'good," Dean manages, muttering in a tight, choked voice. Dad's one cardboard-thin wall away, and Sam's long, spindly fingers are gripping him, easy as you please. He feels like he's unspooling, going nuts, because it seems so casual, so simple. Sam turns towards him, and Dean can smell that strawberry licorice, even though he can't see his lips move.

"Faster," Sam whispers. "Do it faster."

A frisson of pleasure drips down his neck and his hand speeds up - short, quick movements, fingertips skimming and palm hot and hard. Sweat and precome make his grip glide, nice and easy. This is the hottest thing he's ever done. Hotter than the blowjobs, hotter than every feel he's copped off a girl. He's throbbing in Sam's hand, and he feels like he's burning up slowly, spreading from that point where their bare forearms overlap. 

Hazily, distantly, the thought creeps in that this steady-handed tugging must be how Sam jerks himself off on those early mornings - and somehow the abruptness of that well-worn fantasy crashing into reality makes him jerk upwards sharply, biting down on Sam's damp shoulder and shooting his load right into Sam's hand. Right into his jeans.

 

*

 

This shit can't last. He knows that. Knew it ever since he looked over at Sam and felt that ache in his chest, raw and unsure. It's like the first time he found Dad slumped at the table, too drunk to make it to bed on his own. These are things that just change, forever. These are the things that make you hate people. Hate yourself. Maybe not at first, but eventually. 

He doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about it, but it crosses his mind. Enough that when Dad's going to take off to look into that water thing ("Good work, kiddo," he'd said, hand coming down on his shoulder), Dean's wary. Feeling a little too nervous, even though he's the one calling the shots. He wants to tell Sam that they can just walk away from it, they can just pretend it never happened. Sometimes it feels like this stupid town exists in some alternate reality, and maybe - maybe they can just agree on that. Call a do-over. 

"Claire came into the store last night," he says at lunch. They're all there, a kind of final meal before Dad leaves, and Sam's head snaps up from his tuna sandwich so fast he should get whiplash.

"Huh?"

"Yeah." She'd been a thin little thing, with big eyes and short hair. Are you Sam's brother? she'd said, unrolling the bills for milk. He said you worked here. "Said to tell you hi. An' that you should call her."

Sam snorts indelicately, and Dad looks back and forth between the two of them. "Who's Claire?"

"My friend," Sam says.

"His _hot_ friend," Dean corrects, flicking an errant potato chip towards Sam's plate. Sam stares at him. 

"I see." Dad sounds amused. "So Sammy likes a girl?"

"Nah, she just likes him." 

Sam flushes. "No one likes anyone! God, Dean, shut up."

Dad's clearly enjoying this. "We need to have the talk, Sam? 'Cause I can put off my trip a little. Probably still got that safe sex book of Dean's around here somewhere."

"Please. He read that thing cover to cover when he was ten."

Sam mashes his face against his palm. "Why couldn't I have been adopted?"

Dean balances his chair back on two legs and smirks into his sandwich. "'Cause then you wouldn't have us."

 

*

When Sam pummels into their room, Dad's been gone two hours. This is the time limit they always use for Stuff Dad Can't Know About - watching the forbidden high-end channels at motels; blowing most of the food money on a new video game; having Jamie over, when that was an issue. It's quick enough to maximize their time without him around, but long enough that he's not going to just show up, having realized at the interstate turn-off that he forgot a book or something.

Dean's sprawled on his back on the bed, thumbing through a copy of Auto Trader, and then suddenly Sam's there, leaning back on the shut door with color high in his cheeks. Dean can't even sit up, because Sam's across the room and on top of him that fast. The bed gives an almighty creak, and Sam's hands are on his shoulders, Sam's mouth - Jesus - on his throat.

"Dude - " Dean goes for Sam's wrists, trying to push him off, trying to think, but Sam's insistent and heavy on top of him.

"Don't - just - _stop_ it," Sam mutters, right against the juncture of Dean's neck, and Dean's too breathless, too dizzy from the pressure of Sam's thigh suddenly against his cock, from the smell of him, to say anything back. Sam's hands press down his arms, palms flat and hot. "It's okay," Sam says, pulling back to look down at him. Face serious, eyes sharp. "It's gonna be okay, Dean. I promise."

Dean stares up at him. Sunlight from the lone window catches on his hair, on the bits of dust floating in the air between them. His eyes look green in this light, like Dean's, his mouth pale pink and narrow. There was alcohol, there was sleepy heat, there was the thrill of risk, but this is just Sam in Dean's bed, terribly earnest.

"Aw, Sam," he says, because there doesn't seem to be anything else to say. Sam shakes his head a little, his bangs curling across his forehead limply.

"You weren't exactly subtle earlier, man. But I've wanted to do this - well, not _this_ , because I didn't know you wanted this, but I used to... think about you. In your baseball uniform. You looked so hot." And then his hands are sliding into Dean's pants, and Dean's harder than he ever dreamed he could be, aching and wet, dripping in Sam's grip.

"Can't - drink Gatorade now," he breathes, his hand twisting around Dean's prick. All wrist. "It just gives me wood."

Sam pushes his mouth against Dean's then, and it - it's bizarre and strange and sexy and their teeth clink together like glass, jarring all the way through his jaw. But Sam's tongue finds his instantly, and it's nothing like the flutter and probe of Jamie, or any other girls Dean's kissed along the way; it's demanding and desperate and firm, the roughness of his taste buds up against the slick underside of Dean's tongue. Sam's bangs tickle his forehead, and Dean feels so good. His palms are still pressed down against the mattress, but he's arching into Sam's hand, breaths coming fast and shallow.

"Is this - " Sam licks his lips, voice wavery, "how you like it?"

"Jesus Christ." Dean lolls his head back and stares blindly at the generic babe-and-a-car poster over his bed, trying to articulate that Sam could do anything and it would be just right. "Yeah."

Sam's expression teeters between a grin and that same look of focus, the look he gets when he's studying for something. Figuring something out. It's so _Sam_ , so little-brother-Sam that Dean wants to tell him about the alternate reality thing, make him stop - but then Sam's sliding down and looking up at him with those large, dark eyes, tugging his cock from his boxers and still fisting it. For whatever reason, he can't quite believe that Sam's going to do it, but then his tongue is against the head of Dean's prick, and he has never felt anything, anything that good. His lips drag along the tip, so Dean can feel the velveteen smoothness of the skin just inside them, and then he's opening wider and just sliding him in.

Sam's mouth is sloppy and hot, and his hand is steady, as if to make up for it. He's eager and messy, and it's obvious in the way he splutters around it that he's got no idea what goes into this, what it was going to be like. But god - Sam's mouth. Sam's lips, Sam's tongue. Sam's teeth, even, awkwardly close to touching. The light's still glinting off of his hair, and it looks reddish like this - pretty and warm. Even in the worst of those crushing fantasies, of the early-morning wood that wouldn't quit, he never let himself think about this. Never let himself imagine Sammy giving a hummer like he's - Christ. Into it, into it the way that Dean is desperately, grossly into it. 

Dean holds his breath and tries not to think. He's pretty good at that, especially when the only other option is thinking about Sam. Maybe that's why he pulled straight Ds this year. He tries to push his mind into white noise, to not hear the little wet noises or feel the little huffs of breath. 

"OhfuckSam," he exhales, ragged and slurred. The head of his cock is pressing out through Sam's cheek, and he can see it and feel it and it's so much better than anything he's imagined. The fantasies of blowing Sam right here, right in this room, fade into sheer nothingness. His chest is tight with how much he fucking loves Sam, with how brave Sam is, with the knowledge that Sam wants this too, and then Sam's putting a little suction into it and Dean's completely lost.

 

*

 

They leave Buckner when the air gets thick and scratchy with autumn. Dad finds a new case out west, and just like that, everything's going into boxes for Goodwill. Dean's an old pro at this part of the game, shoving posters, books, most of his clothes, into boxes that once held shipments of fruit. The only thing that gives him pause is the Nintendo, which they have a grave minute of silence for. 

It's a given that they're going to be on the road for months, now. Dean knows and Sam knows it, too, but he still gets kind of pensive around the mouth when his school supply list for the next year shows up in the mail. Dean's, What, you got a stalker or something? dies in his mouth when he looks over Sam's shoulder and sees it. Sam's not going to start high school with other kids. He's not going to have Mrs. Kellogg for home room, or take electives with pretty, heart-breaking Claire.

Dean remembers from every other fall that Sam's got this stupid thing for school supplies, though, and even though it's pointless, he drags Sam out to the car and drives them to Wal-Mart. Lets him loose on the aisles of Pee-Chee folders, spiral notebooks and college ruled paper. The way Sam's face lights up at white-out pens is worth it. He even lays down real money from his last paycheck, and Sam grins at him in the check-out line. Sticks one of his dry-erase pens between his teeth and waggles his eyebrows, and then nonchalantly sneaks a package of licorice onto the conveyer belt.

Out in the sticky heat of the car, he drops the plastic bag on the seat between them and looks out the window, like he's trying to imbed the memory of this anonymous parking lot into his head.

"Did I fuck you up?" Dean asks abruptly.

"What? No!" 

"With this sex stuff," he adds unnecessarily. Sam pinkens immediately.

"I'm not a kid, Dean," he says, looking about ten years old. 

"Yeah, you're a real worldly eighth grader."

Sam mashes his lips together in irritation. "Ninth. I'm a ninth grader now. I'm going to be in high school."

"You'll always be a shrimpy punk to me," Dean says. Sam slugs him then, and Dean throws a bag of pencil-top erasers at his head. There's a scuffle - Dean manages to toss the pointy objects from the shopping bag into the back seat, and Sam beats his awkwardly large fists against the firm expanse of Dean's abdomen - and then there's the metallic clang of shopping carts somewhere nearby, and they collapse back into their proper seats.

It's silent for a few moments, easy and warm in the front seat, and then Sam leans over and kisses him. 

 

-fin.

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a companion piece (but not a prequel or sequel) to another fic of mine, [For My Next Trick](http://archiveofourown.org/works/552875). Both explore Sam and Dean at age seventeen, and both are set during a time the Winchesters stopped moving long enough for them to enroll in school and glimpse normalcy. For My Next Trick has an established relationship from the start (Sam is 17, Dean is 21), but essentially they're two sides of the same coin.


End file.
